Exam finished!

The exam is finished!

Woohoo!

Free at last.  Now I can devote my time to what ever I want.  To be porductive... like... NOW!

I feel like there is 200 pounds less on my shoulders.

It is time now to take actions.  Practical and immediate actions.

Actions dictates priorities. So stop planning, stop making congections and assessments.  Just do it.

(By the way my best estimation following the exam is that I miss the pass mark by 10 points.  I'll know for sure in 10 days).

slaughterhouse

Summary of my study project.

Not good.

Tomorrow I am going to the slautherhouse.

Too much matter to study in too much little time.

Too much free time at the same time so very easy to drift away.  Especially when the subject studied is so boring.

I know that this is a 90 questions pick and choose the good answer question.  The passing grade is 60%.

So I need 54 good answers.  I will have to focus on that.  Generating 54 good answers.  The idea is to pass on each question and answer.  In the margin there will be eather :); ? or :(

:) means I know the answer is good.

? means I don't have a clue.  I will have to make up the most likely answer.  I have % chances of success on each of these question.  Or 12.5% if there is five choices per question.

This is not much.  The statistics are against me.  I can upgrade the odds in my favor by working out the answer as close as what ever choice of answer they provide me.  But then I will deal against the clock.

Well see...

One thing for sure that it made me realize is that the subject of study is of no interest to me.  I was not able to boost myself into genuine study this last week.  Even if the subject of money, making money and acquiring money is dear to me.  The format then provided it sucks.  And I find no joy in that.

My learning experience update

This has been a week now that I study.  I am something like 60% thru the topics.  This not going well.

I am questionning my entire strategy here.  Some times you have to make a step back and assess what is the objective again and see if the strategy undertaken is still the good one.

For my part... I'm not sure.

The objective I pursue is protection.  Get yself an insurance policy against a employment market that can get rid of me at any times.  Because lets face it.  We are all expendable in the corporate world.  Today you're a hero, next thing you know there is a change of manager and this one hates your guts and next you're a zero.  This is the way it is way you don't hold the final decision about your means of income.

So the idea is to give the employee a very good job  A professional one and provide genuine solutions to its problems.  Be part of the solution, not the problem.  But at the same time, work into developing an alternate source of income.  Be not dependable on a sole source of revenues.  This is stupid strategy.  Diversify.

So the course I undertake was to open a door to advancement in my corporation.  A new field of jobs that is denied to me right now because I don't have the papers they require.

But what is the big Why?  Why do I do this?  Is this for the job itself?  Or is it for the insurance policy that I will be able to change job fast if ever something happens to me?  And the answer is the lather.

So am I engaged into the right track?  At the shortest I will get this certification in 1.5 years or 2 years.  This is to say that my insurance policy would be activated in two years from now.  So what happens next week?  And the week after that?  What happens from now until two years?

I am exposed.

And this is not good strategy.

I made a mistake.  I put all my eggs into the same basket which would provides its fruits only in two years.

There is other ways to get my insurance policy in place.

Getting a second job part time
Reimbursing all my debts on a fast track pace
Getting a cushion.  A emergency fund
Talking to people.  Networking.  Getting myself known so if there is a problem, opportunities would be at my grasp.

That is the conclusion I came to yesterday.  I took the entire day of yesterday.  And I am very proud I did.  It opened my eyes.

So now I am not going to trow this course out the window.  I will continue on studying.  But the outcome of the exam will be of no major relevance to me.

If I pass, I will pursue at a slower pace and develop some of the solutions I came up with above.

If I fail.  Then I will abandon that idea and pursue more than one, if not all, of the above solutions I came up with at a faster pace.

We'll see.

Update on my studies

Its day three of my study experiment.

Monday I packed 10 hours study. More than planned.  Yesterday I packed 8 hours.  And today, I should pack something like 9 hours study.

The stuff is more dense than I expected.  Not that its complicated.  Its just dense... a lot of stuff.  And a lot of details.

I am nit sure this is the way to go.  Packing 7 days straight of studies back to back, scraping a week vacation in the process.  Its so sunny and hot outside.  I will never the less have a few laps in the pool later.

I am committed to go on this experiment.  We'll see at the end.

The bet I took

I took a bet with myself a few months ago.  I have this finance certificate that I wan to do.  I know that this will open doors for me on new jobs opportunity (in the mean time that my own business kicks off).

Because you see.  This certificate will provide me with a joker in my cards.  This will open doors on jobs I didn't have access before in my own firm.  And this also represent a wonderful employment insurance policy for I know that, having that certificate, I will be able to find a job in any financial company there is.

The problem is... I have absolutely no time to study.

But I have to do this course if I don't want to stand still.

This is a distance course.  So I can study on my own pace.  There is ten courses to take and as per the education center, it takes from three to six months each courses on average.  Now I don't want to take three to five years to complete the curriculum.  It would deceive my purpose of moving as fast as I can.

So here is the bet I took.  As per the education center, this course should take at least 45 hours study.  I took one week vacation.  My exam is scheduled for August 27 at 1h00 PM. This means that there is seven days remaining.  I made absolutely  no study so far except reading and high lighting the books.  If I put five yours a day study on this, I should pile up 35 hours study.  I will get short as per their proposed requirement.  But I am a fast learner and I count on it.

That is the bet I took: piling up study hours and trash the exam in one week.  If I succeed, I will do the same with all the other courses.  So I should be able to do something like one course each two months or so.  May be less (two weeks reading and highlighting, one week study then exam = course done in 3 weeks). I should finish the curriculum in one year and a half (may be less) instead of the three years minimum they suggest.  (This is still long by my standard for I would like to have the certificate like... yesterday.  But never the less, its better than five years).

That is a challenge I know.  But I'm in it now and there is no turning back (I already paid for the course).

I will report my advances and findings here.